Desi land
Subtitle: teen culture, class, and success in Silicon Valley
By: Shalini Shankar.
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Durham, N.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 275
ISBN-13: 9780822343004; 9780822343158
Subjects: South Asian American teenagers -- California -- Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County) -- Social conditions; South Asian American teenagers -- California -- Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County) -- Ethnic identity; South Asian Americans -- California -- Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County) -- Social conditions; South Asian Americans -- California -- Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County) -- Ethnic identity; Ethnicity -- California -- Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County); Subculture -- California -- Santa Clara Valley (Santa Clara County)
Description: "Desi Land is Shalini Shankar's lively ethnographic account of South Asian American teen culture during the Silicon Valley dot-com boom. Shankar focuses on how South Asian Americans, or "Desis," define and manage what it means to be successful in a place brimming with the promise of technology. Between 1999 and 2001 Shankar spent many months "kickin' it" with Desi teenagers at three Silicon Valley high schools, and she has since followed their lives and stories. The diverse high-school students who populate Desi Land are Muslims, Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs, from South Asia and other locations; they include first- to fourth-generation immigrants whose parents' careers vary from assembly-line workers to engineers and CEOs. By analyzing how Desi teens' conceptions and realizations of success are influenced by community values, cultural practices, language use, and material culture, she offers a nuanced portrait of diasporic formations in a transforming urban region."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Welcome to Desi land; title: California, here we come, right back where we started from; title: Defining Desi teen culture; title: Living and desiring the Desi bling life; title: Desi fashions of speaking; title: Being fobulous on multicultural day; title: Remodeling the model minority stereotype; title: Dating on the DL and arranged marriages; title: In the new millennium.